Sullivan spars over food hub

Friday

Apr 4, 2014 at 2:00 AM

MONTICELLO — Sullivan County's Industrial Development Agency is going to consider a county-owned property in Glen Wild for a food-distribution facility to satisfy legislators leery of spending $110,000 on a parcel at a nearby business park developed by Butch Resnick.

Leonard Sparks

MONTICELLO — Sullivan County's Industrial Development Agency is going to consider a county-owned property in Glen Wild for a food-distribution facility to satisfy legislators leery of spending $110,000 on a parcel at a nearby business park developed by Butch Resnick.

Last month, Legislators Gene Benson, Cora Edwards, Cindy Gieger, Alan Sorensen and Kitty Vetter voted to table a request from Legislator Ira Steingart to use county money to buy seven acres for a food hub at Resnick's business park.

On Thursday, County Treasurer Ira Cohen and several legislators said the county just took title to a 34-acre property across the road from Resnick's property.

"If there's an opportunity to save that money through county-owned property that we already have, than I think that's the first thing we should always do," Sorensen said. "This appears to be a win-win."

Walter Garigliano, the IDA's counsel, and Todd Erling, head of the Hudson Valley AgriBusiness Development Corp., led a presentation on the project Thursday

Along with a similar facility in Hudson, Sullivan's hub would be part of a distribution network in which a fleet of trucks would shuttle local farm products to buyers in the region and in the New York City market.

Hudson-based Ginsberg's Foods is partnering with the American Farmland Trust, Cornell Cooperative Extension and the IDA on the project. It has $760,000 in federal, state and private funding, but is $110,000 short, according to Steingart.

"The reason we did this was to get the project going immediately," he said of the request for county money.

Emotions have been high over the decision to table the request, which was opposed by Steingart and Legislators Kathy LaBuda, Jonathan Rouis and Scott Samuelson.

On March 28, the Sullivan County Democrat published a letter from Rouis. In it, he accuses the five legislators who voted for the delay of not giving a valid reason for "denying the project."

Edwards said she supported the project, but wanted more information before approving the use of county money.

"There is support, but we wouldn't be doing our job if people treated us like an ATM," she said.